Authentic Christianity: How Lutheran Theology Speaks to a Postmodern World

by Gene Edward Veith Jr.

Lutherans have always cultivated the art of applying God’s Law so that it brings conviction of sin. Destroying every shred of self-righteousness, this “theological use” of the Law provokes repentance, awakening sinners to their need for the Gospel, whereupon Lutherans proclaim the Christ who bore their sins and the penalty they deserve. Christ justifies sinners, creating a faith that is active in love and good works. But Christians continue to need both the Law and the Gospel, as they struggle against sin and grow in holiness.

Lutheranism has solved the cultural problem. Its doctrine of the two kingdoms is this: the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the world are two distinct spheres that must not be confused with each other. But Christians are citizens of both realms, and God is king of them both, though ruling each in different ways. The secular realm, in all of its secularity, belongs to God, who rules it with His providential care, His created order, and His Law. The spiritual realm is also God’s, and He governs it with His Word, His redemption, and His Gospel.

According to this modern spirituality, there is one exception to God’s otherwise distant demeanor—and that’s when a problem arises. When a problem cannot easily be resolved, God is called on to roll up His holy sleeves and get to work. These are the rare occasions when God is needed.

More often, God’s help is conceived of in terms of therapy—if we can learn to follow His principles or learn how to be tolerant and good like Him, we will be able to better overcome our mistakes, solve our personal problems, and attain happiness. There are some serious problems with this modern form of Deism. It is spiritually anemic and leaves people perpetually searching for more. At its very best, this modern form of Deism is like a cup of weak decaf coffee that only arouses the desire for something stronger, bolder, and fully caffeinated. At its very worst, this modern form of Deism leaves people in utter despair as they look out into a vacuous universe wondering where God might possibly be found. A modern spirituality that relies on a distant and aloof deity will never be satisfying.

And because the human will is unstable and the sinful nature keeps manifesting itself, the Christian is often plagued with uncertainty about salvation and God’s favor.

But true Christian theology, as I often warn you, does not present God to us in His majesty, as Moses and other teachings do, but Christ born of the Virgin as our Mediator and High Priest. Therefore when we are embattled against the Law, sin, and death in the presence of God, nothing is more dangerous than to stray into heaven with our idle speculations, there to investigate God in His incomprehensible power, wisdom, and majesty, to ask how He created the world and how He governs it. (LW 26:28–29)

To be sure, as Luther said, apart from Christ, God appears to be “angry and terrible.” But His incarnation in Jesus presents God in a completely different light: gracious, forgiving, and saving. Far from looking down from a distance on a world of evil and suffering, God the Son enters it, taking the sins and griefs of the world into Himself.

Lutheran theology stresses the nearness of God in Word and Sacrament. In a world that has no idea where God is located, Lutheran theology revels in the presence of God in the Word, the Sacraments, and the Church.

Lutheran theology has an exceptional awareness of God’s active speaking through the external Word. Instead of emphasizing the furtive possibility that God might speak to you through some inner feeling or experience, Lutheran theology clearly locates God’s active speaking in the Word. The external Word is the locus of God’s proclamation. Scripture is much more than distant and dusty words spoken by God long ago; Scripture is a direct confrontation and encounter with God in the present moment.

The proclamation of God’s Word, though it may seem like nothing more than a Gospel reading or sermon, is actually God speaking into the here and now. It is God descending and speaking in your ear: He speaks the Law, chips away at your sinful heart, and brings you to repentance through the Holy Spirit. In His Word, He heralds the Gospel to you, proclaims salvation in Christ Jesus, and sets you free.

God is both hidden and located in Word and Sacrament. This means that the church, where Word and Sacrament ministry occurs, is the locus of God’s presence in this world. God has not promised to be present on the golf course. God has made no vow to meet you in the radiant beauty of the sunrise or the stillness of the evening sunset. God never claimed that He would be present by means of some inner feeling in your gut. Rather, God has promised to be present in the Word and Sacrament ministry of the church: “For where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them” (Matthew 18:20).

Lutheran theology revels in the presence of God that takes place in the ordinary worship of the local congregation. The nearness of God is not a fleeting experience that occurs only when the lights are low, the feeling is right, and the praise band is really in the moment. God does not wait for the smoke machine and background keyboard music before He will arrive in worship. He comes when the Body of Christ gathers together in His name. He floods the sanctuary with His merciful presence as sins are forgiven. He is near in the reading of Scripture and the preaching of the Gospel. He is truly present in what appears to be nothing more than simple bread and wine. The nearness of God that takes place through the Word and Sacrament ministry of a church may appear to be bland, banal, and boring by worldly standards. The church, nevertheless, is holy ground where the infinite God has located Himself here among us.

To believe, trust, and depend on the fact that Christ saves us is to be justified by faith. Now,

Now, it might seem that justification is another theological term whose meaning has been lost in today’s secular climate, for people today do not think they have sins that need forgiving. Christianity, however—in particular, the Lutheran variety—is about the forgiveness of sins. To many others, though, “sin” is thought to be an outmoded concept.

It turns out that justification is the article on which we all stand or fall.

But these are all simply attempts at self-justification. They are endless mental exercises by which we can consider ourselves to be good. They are attempts to evade the terrifying prospect of God’s judgment.

We soften the demands of God’s Law, hoping to evade them. Rather than struggle with God’s all-demanding Law, we substitute laws of our own that are easier to fulfill. Instead of worrying about bearing false witness or committing adultery, we recycle, considering ourselves righteous because of our environmental sensitivity. With hearts spewing hateful thoughts directed at our neighbors, we consternate over a single plastic cup in the trash. We replace obedience to God with obedience to our peer group. But the very evasions of God’s Law demonstrate its force.

We always feel the need to show that we are right. At work, online, in our casual conversations, in our relationships with others, we are always seeking approval, scoring points, making excuses, and defending ourselves. These are all facets of self-justification.

But what if, instead of having to justify ourselves, we are justified by Christ? What if God Himself gives us approval, affirmation, assurance that our existence matters, that our lives are worthwhile? A declaration from God, no less, would settle the question: despite our manifest shortcomings, He considers us good; our lives have His approval. The incessant desire to earn the approval of others on social media is put to rest when we are justified by Christ.

He took the evils of the world—that is to say, the sins of the entire human race—into Himself. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). St. Paul puts it even more strongly: “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin”—God the Father made Jesus, the sinless one, to be sin—“so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, emphasis added). Here St. Paul is also describing what this does for us. Jesus becomes sin so that we can become righteousness. It is not just that we become righteous (adjective); rather, we become righteousness (noun). And we do not just become human righteousness, but we become “the righteousness of God.” The Son of God takes our sin and we receive His righteousness. Luther calls this the “wonderful exchange

This is unbelievable, one might think. It would be tremendous if it were true, but how could it be? How could God become a human being? How could anyone—even God—bear another person’s sins, let alone the sins of the entire world? It staggers the mind. It is beyond understanding.

Think of this in relation to the Lord's Supper

Rather than human reason or power, faith is how we receive Christ Jesus. God does this by calling me. “The Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel.” To be “called” is to hear a voice, to be personally addressed by words. The Holy Spirit’s voice is, by virtue of His divinity, God’s Word. Specifically, the call to faith comes from the Gospel, a term that means “Good News.”

The Law gives way to the Gospel. Once we have despaired of justifying ourselves, the message that Christ has justified us becomes our only hope, our salvation. Broken by the Law, we cling to this Good News, this Gospel, depending on it and reveling in it. This is faith, created by the Holy Spirit through the Word. We are justified by faith.

Lutherans experience the conviction of the Law—known as “repentance”—and the reception of Christ’s forgiveness every Sunday in the Divine Service—in the Scripture readings, the sermon, the corporate confession of sins and the Absolution, and the Sacraments.

The Christian life begins, strictly speaking, with Baptism. The catechism defines Baptism as water “combined with God’s word,”7 so that it conveys the Gospel. We are united with Christ’s life, His death, and His resurrection in the waters of Baptism. This includes infants, who, whatever their faults, are incapable of self-justification.

The point is, we need to continually be brought to repentance by the Law and be brought to faith by the Gospel. As this happens, day by day, week by week, through Word and Sacrament, we grow in faith.

Evangelicals believe in justification by faith alone, but they tend to understand this as referring to a single time of conversion. After that, we are basically thrown back into the Law so that our good works become central once again. Also, many Evangelicals think of faith in terms of an act of the will, “a decision to accept Christ,” rather than the Holy Spirit’s work through Law and Gospel.

Calvinists recognize justification by grace through faith pretty much as Lutherans do, but with one major difference: they believe in the doctrine of limited atonement, that Christ died only for the elect. Lutherans believe in universal atonement, that Christ died for the sins of the entire world. As the Bible puts it, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Under Calvinism, one can never be quite sure if Christ died “for me.” Christians struggling with that question are encouraged to scrutinize their lives and their inner selves for evidence of “the fruits of faith”; that is, good works. But that, again, throws us back to the Law and good works as the de facto basis for the assurance of salvation. Calvinism also creates a system in which election—not the cross—is, in effect, the basis for justification.

In contrast, Lutheran pastors assure tormented Christians that Christ indeed died for them. Christians honest enough to admit that inside they are full of sin and death are encouraged not to look at themselves for assurance of salvation but to look outside themselves—to the cross, to their Baptism, to Holy Communion, where Christ gives His sacrificed body and sacrificial blood “for you.” Lutheran theology emphasizes the extra nos (ou...

Lutherans call this “objective justification.” As we shall see, this doctrine is one reason that Lutherans can embrace the physical realm and secular life so fully.

To be sure, some people have been baptized, have received Holy Communion, and have read God’s Word, and yet they have no faith in Christ at all. The Holy Spirit has not created faith in their hearts, at least not yet. Or, rather, they have rejected that faith and are resisting the Holy Spirit.

Restless hearts and anxious minds find peace in justification. Frenetic lives of self-justification have rest in the salvation of Jesus Christ. The incessant need to prove our own worthiness and our failure to ever do so are nailed to the cross, buried in the tomb, and put to death forever. Jesus has taken us off the unending treadmill of self-justification and given us unending peace in Him: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

This theology teaches that Jesus died on the cross not so much to atone for sins but to give you your best life now. Faith is not so much trusting Christ to save you but a way of finding health and prosperity.

Luther would call the prosperity gospel an extreme example of a “theology of glory.” To this he opposed a “theology of the cross.”

But for Luther, the cross is not only the basis of our justification, it is also the key to the Christian life, the essence of God’s revelation, the way Christianity turns the world—and ourselves—upside down. Luther wrote in capital letters in a commentary on the Psalms, “THE CROSS ALONE IS OUR THEOLOGY.”

the prosperity gospel is simply an extreme religious application of the constructivism taught in our sophisticated universities. The self constructs its own reality through its choices and its beliefs.

But today’s version is moralistic therapeutic Deism. God is too kindhearted to punish us or interfere with our lives. What we need for our salvation, in the new sense of help with our problems, is not redemption but therapy.

Encouraging. Inspiring. Affirming. Supportive. These words describe the ideal greeting card, support group, or self-help book. Individuals possess an innate inner potential. The capacity for success is hidden within everyone, just waiting to be released. However, life can be hard and people need to be encouraged along the way. The tedium of daily life requires a hearty dose of inspiration. What people need is a life coach—a mentor, a pastor, a best-selling guru, or perhaps a spirit guide or even some version of a god—to come alongside them, affirm them in times of indecision, support them through struggles, unlock their inner potential, and see them through to personal victory.

Postmodernist critics claim that religion is nothing more than a manifestation of power: the cultural power of privileged groups and the individual’s will to personal power. Such a critique is surely unfair and reductionistic, but the theology of glory is indeed about power. The theology of the cross, by contrast, with its radical rejection of human power and God’s rejection of His own power in His incarnation and crucifixion, is the definitive answer to the postmodernist critiques of Christianity.

And yet, as a theological formulation, Luther’s way of making the cross foundational to all of theology would soon be supplanted by more “glorious” approaches to God, even in Protestantism. In place of Christ on the cross, the central principle of Calvinism—in its own words—is “the glory of God.” This, ironically, ran parallel to the mind-set of the Counter-Reformation, with the Jesuit slogan, “To the greater glory of God.”

But the spiritual impulse for glory soon crossed over into the secularist arena, where it could flourish free of any constraints of Scripture or incarnation. The Jesuits and Calvinists had already exalted reason, preparing the way for the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, which rejected revelation altogether in its confidence in reason and reason alone.

Luther’s proclamation of the hidden presence of God in the dereliction of Calvary, and of the Christ who was forsaken on the cross, struck a deep chord of sympathy in those who felt themselves abandoned by God, and unable to discern his presence anywhere.”9 Those feelings persist even in the comforts and affluence of our postmodern times.

Gerhard Forde in his commentary on the Heidelberg Disputation,10 says that the reflex that automatically considers suffering to be evil is part of what Luther is referring to in Thesis 21 when he says, “A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil,” that puzzling statement that we quoted previously.

In contrast, says Forde, theologians of the cross “are not driven to simplistic theodicies because with St. Paul they believe that God justifies Himself precisely in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

Instead of preaching and pastoral care that is evangelical—that is, an application of the cross of Jesus Christ to save sinners—preaching and pastoral care have become therapeutic. That is, they seek to solve people’s problems, make them happier, and alleviate any emotional or mental suffering. “Preachers try to prop up our self-esteem with optimistic blandishments,” says Forde. “The church becomes primarily a support group rather than the gathering of the body of Christ where the word of the cross and the resurrection is proclaimed and heard.”18

No, God the Father didn’t suffer, but God the Son did. He did so by assuming a human nature, which made it possible for Him to suffer and to die. But the divine nature thus experienced those things. Another Lutheran theologian, Martin Chemnitz, in The Two Natures in Christ,19 explains it this way: Human beings also have two natures. We have a physical nature and a spiritual nature, a body and a soul. What we experience physically we also experience spiritually. When our body suffers, our soul feels that. This is because we are one person.

In Christ, the divine and the human natures “communicate” with each other. The transcendent immutable God can thus be said to have suffered and died on the cross.

For God in His own nature cannot die; but now that God and man are united in one person, it is called God’s death when the man dies who is one substance or one person with God. [LW 41:103–4]20

But if we consider “the incarnate and human God,” we find a Deity who enters the human condition, subjecting Himself to evil and suffering, “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). More than that, He somehow took the evils of the whole world and the suffering of the whole world into Himself on the cross.

But an omnipotent God who makes Himself a sacrificial victim could actually, literally, assume the world’s sufferings and sins—even become sin (2 Corinthians 5:21)—so that He could receive His own judgment against sin as a reality.